Portal:Catholicism/Patron Archive/January 28
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Thomas Aquinas, O.P.(also Saint Thomas Aquinas, Thomas of Aquin, or Aquino; c. 1225 – 7 March 1274) was an Italian Catholic priest in the Dominican Order, a philosopher and theologian in the scholastic tradition, known as Doctor Angelicus, Doctor Universalis and Doctor Communis. He was the foremost classical proponent of natural theology, and the father of the Thomistic school of philosophy and theology.
Aquinas was born around 1225 at his father Count Landulf's castle of Roccasecca in the kingdom of Naples, in the present-day Regione Lazio. Through his mother, Aquinas was related to the Hohenstaufen dynasty of Holy Roman emperors.
When he was 16, he went to the University of Naples, where he studied for six years. Aquinas had come under the influence of the Dominicans, who wished to enlist the ablest young scholars of the age. The Dominicans and the Franciscans represented a revolutionary challenge to the well-established clerical systems of Medieval Europe.
His superiors saw his great aptitude for theological study. In late 1244, they sent him to the Dominican school in Cologne, where Albertus Magnus was lecturing on philosophy and theology. In 1245, Aquinas accompanied Albertus to the University of Paris, where they remained for three years. Aquinas then graduated as a bachelor of theology. In 1248, he returned to Cologne, where he was appointed second lecturer and magister studentium.
In 1252, Aquinas went to Paris for his master's degree.
In 1256, began to lecture on theology in Paris and Rome and other Italian towns. From this time on, his life was one of incessant toil. Aquinas continually served in his order, frequently made long and tedious journeys, and constantly advised the reigning pontiff on affairs of state.
Its reported that Aquinas heard a voice from a cross that told him he had written well. On one occasion, monks claimed to have found him levitating.
In January 1274, Pope Gregory X directed Aquinas to attend the Second Council of Lyons. Aquinas's task was to investigate and, if possible, settle the differences between the Greek and Latin churches. Far from healthy, he undertook the journey. On the way, he stopped at the castle of a niece and there became seriously ill. After a lingering illness of seven weeks, Aquinas died on March 7, 1274.
Attributes: a dominican with a book and a church
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